Nearly 50 years after it was made popular by the TV show “Mission: Impossible,” the self-destructing message could inch closer to reality very soon. US telecom firm AT&T has sought a patent for a system of self-destructing emails with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Lasers burning images onto your retina? What could go possibly wrong? The US Patent and Trademark Office has published a Google patent application that provides a raft of details about that company's much-ballyhooed " Glass " augmented-reality spectacles.?